Team Canada, aiming to win the most Olympic medals in Sochi, has plenty of athletes who aren’t being counted on for glory. But there will be surprises, and there’s nothing better than watching a plucky underdog take out the favourite. Here are a few to add to your cheering list:

Luge

Canada has never won an Olympic medal in this feet-first sliding sport. Since its inclusion in the 1964 Olympics, Germany has picked up the majority of medals in all disciplines. But Canada’s team is the strongest it has ever been, by far.

The best shot is Alex Gough, who has proven she can beat the Germans in World Cup races. The next best chance is the debut of team relay, a format that plays to the Canadians’ strengths.

“There’s a very good chance that Alex or the doubles (Tristan Walker and Justin Snith) or all of us in relay could be the first luge medal for Canada,” Edney said, “but I have the opportunity to really be the first one because men race first.”

Ski jumping

Canada has qualified an impressive three jumpers among the field of 30 for the Olympic debut of this event for women. But here at home, ski jumpers such as 22-year-old Atsuko Tanaka and 18-year-olds Alexandra Pretorius and Taylor Henrich don’t get much love.

“We’re not even recognized as a sport,” said Curtis Lyon, Ski Jumping Canada’s chairman, high performance director and spokesperson.

That means Lyon’s top athletes don’t get automatic Sport Canada funding, which is supposed to subsidize training costs. They also lost a third of their budget in the pre-Olympic year when Canada’s Own the Podium program pulled the plug on the women, he said.

Still, these three have posted impressive results to get this far. Both Tanaka and Pretorius won Grand Prix events in 2013.

“Every athlete’s dream is to go to the Olympics, and now we have that chance,” Tanaka said. “We just have to prove that we belong there.”

Canada has never won an Olympic medal in men’s ski jumping (that makes the four men on the team underdogs, too).

Sports funding in Canada follows strong results. A good showing in Sochi would help the entire program. Talk about pressure, and reason to cheer them on.

Just months before the last Winter Olympics in Vancouver, she suffered a catastrophic injury that tore up everything there is to tear in a knee. She missed the 2010 Games and struggled for years to regain peak form. Then 10 months ago, Alpine Canada dropped her from the national team because she wasn’t deemed to have any medal potential for Sochi.

She hadn’t managed to crack the top 30 that season, but refused to give up on her Olympic dream. She found sponsors, hired a coach and turned in career-best results — sixth and seventh — to qualify.

Even with American favourite Lindsey Vonn out with a knee injury, the field is deep and Yurkiw’s recent gains guarantee nothing once that start gate opens. Still, with each result better than the last of late, expectations are high.

“Nobody remembers fourth place, so it’s very clear that medals are the goal,” she said. “That’s the thing that I would be most proud to bring home to Canada.”

Jean-Philippe Le Guellec, biathlon

He’s already made Canadian history a couple of times. At the Vancouver Olympics, he finished sixth in the 10-kilometre sprint, Canada’s best-ever men’s result. Myriam Bedard is the only Canadian to have won an Olympic medal: gold and bronze at the 1994 Games, bronze in 1992.

Then in December 2012, Le Guellec won World Cup gold medal in the season opener — the first time a Canadian man had ever stood on a Cup podium. He shot clean in challenging conditions in the 10k sprint — the breakthrough race he had been working towards since he became 2004 world junior champion in the 7.5k sprint.

Sochi will mark the third Olympic appearance for the 28-year-old from Shannon, Que. He’s long been the best in Canada, but that hasn’t been enough to consistently break into the top ranks on the world stage. He leads eight Canadians into Sochi, where a new mixed relay event is on the menu.

“This group of athletes may be the most underrated team in Canadian Olympic sport,” Biathlon Canada high-performance director Chris Lindsay told The Canadian Press, “but we are fiercely driven to capitalize on our position of flying under the radar and make some noise in Sochi.”

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